Dear Families, Happy Sunday! I trust you are finding ways to enjoy the warmer weather this weekend sans smoky air. Thank you to those who were able to make it to Back to School Night last Thursday. It was good to meet you and to be able to relay the plans for year ahead. If you weren't able to make it, please let me know and I will send the parent letter and presentation to you. This week we will continue to learn about Native Americans. We have begun reading the book Two Old Women, a legend from the Athabascan people of Alaska. We are watching the film Make Prayers to the Raven about modern day Athabascans. The students will be doing an online scavenger hunt to learn more about the tribes that existed in North America before exploration and settlement. Students took a formative assessment on the math concepts we've gone over so far on Friday. We will continue with another aspect of place value this week, learning about decimal fractions and place value patterns. Last week, students completed and shared the stories they wrote as their first piece of writing for the year. We have some very skilled writers in our class! We'll go over some grammar rules and practice this week and will be writing a narrative piece in the coming weeks. Below are a few photos from the past week. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Enjoy the week ahead! Kind Regards, Ms. Welsh
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Dear 5A Families, I trust you all have had a great weekend, maybe dodging a few Maseratis and Ferraris out there this weekend. Zoom, zoom! The classroom community is developing along well. In general, I find the students very caring and kind to one another. They are also open to trying new things which is also great for learning. We’re working on transition times now and trying to tighten up the time between activities, so we can get in as much valuable learning time as possible. First, congratulations to Eva on a great performance in the Wizard of Oz play last night. She and a few other former and present ISMers along with the other amazing cast put on a wonderful show at the Outdoor Forest Theater in Carmel. The show runs through most of September and is highly recommended. Bravo Eva! This week we’ll be digging further into our unit under the theme of Where we are in place and time. We’ll be learning about some of the major Native American tribes in the U.S. (before it was the U.S.). The students will be doing an inquiry into where and how they lived. Students began their first piece of writing last week based on drawings they were given to choose from. See this website for examples of what we used. Their imaginative stories will be due on Tuesday and we’ll share as many as we can in class. This piece of writing will be part of their portfolio for the beginning of the year. We will continue to focus on place value in math this week and begin working on the powers of 10 and multiplying whole numbers and decimals by powers of 10. We are all trying to do our best in applying a different math curriculum this year to better meet all of the common core standards. Students have an interactive journal they use in class as well as work in a binder. Most of the math homework will be on separate paper that should come home in their homework folder Monday through Thursday. Thursday night is Back to School Night from 6:15 to 8:15. Everyone will meet in the multiuse room to start. Classroom teachers and specialist teachers will give the same presentation three different times to help accommodate those that need to attend more than one classroom presentation. An email was sent from Mrs. Allen to let you know the times and plan. MYP teachers will have a Back to School Night on the following Thursday, Sept. 1st. The class website is up and running and can be found at this address: grade5ism.weebly.com (Which you have obviously found if you are reading this here.) I’ll post my updates to you there along with photos I might have taken during the week. There are also several math resources linked there that might be helpful to you. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Best wishes, Ms. Welsh Dear 5th grade students and families, Greetings and welcome to a new school year at ISM! I’m looking forward to this year with all of you and am excited to be working alongside Ms. Beletti as we begin a journey of learning together throughout the year ahead. As we begin the year, we’ll be deliberately taking time to learn the procedures and steps to our regular routines, and moving quickly to activities that require higher thinking skills, collaboration and hopefully lots of fun. We’ll be working carefully toward deeper levels of understanding and the ability to communicate one’s thinking clearly and thoughtfully. At the start of the year, we’ll be investigating native cultures, explorers and their explorations and the meeting of the two. The curriculum will also take us way out in space and also looking at the very, very small bits that make up everything. We’ll also be exploring food webs and energy movement in an ecosystem. The big deal for 5th graders at ISM is the Exhibition which takes place in the spring. This collaborative project-based investigation is designed for the students to use the skills, attitudes and attributes they’ve been developing throughout their PYP experience. They will present their projects to the ISM school community as well as to the parents (evening). Math will be looking a little different this year as we focus on Common Core Standards and begin using the Engage New York/Eureka Math curriculum. This is new for most of the teachers and students and we will do our best to support your child in their learning as well as inform parents as to where we are heading in each unit/module. Ms. Beletti and I will be creating a new class website as the year progresses. This will be a place you can find my weekly updates of what’s going on in class and in the ISM community, photos, and resources. I'll let you know the website address, once we're ready to roll it out. The best way to reach me is usually through email. [email protected] . Please keep in mind that I am teaching during the day and may not be able to respond immediately, but will do so as soon as I’m able. I looking forward to working with you as we support your child’s learning together. May this year prove to be a challenging, enriching and rewarding year for all of us – students, parents and teachers. Best wishes for great year ahead, Ms. Cunningham-Welsh (aka Ms. Welsh) |
AuthorThis is my tenth year at ISM and fifth year teaching 5th grade. I enjoy working with young people and being with my family. I love being outdoors in nature, on or in the ocean. I look for ways to continue learning and growing. Archives
June 2017
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